Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I also want to thank the committee for its interest in these issues.
The issues of undocumented foreign workers and temporary foreign workers are complex and involve a number of stakeholders across the government of Canada, provincial and territorial governments, municipalities, employers and labour.
Within the Government of Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, or CIC, works closely with both the Canada Border Services Agency, the CBSA, and Human Resources and Social Development Canada, or HRSDC, on these key issues.
I am pleased that colleagues from those two departments are here with us today to respond to your questions.
CIC has the broad responsibility for developing the policies and programs related to the selection of permanent and temporary residents in Canada.
Together with HRSDC, CIC manages the temporary foreign worker program. HRSDC manages from the perspective of labour market impacts and the assessment of employer requests for temporary foreign workers; CIC assesses individual workers against the jobs offered by Canadian employers to ensure that they have the necessary skills and qualifications to perform the work and that they do not pose a criminal threat to Canada or to the health and security of Canadians.
The CBSA has the mandate for all immigration enforcement activities, including removals. Undocumented workers or those here working without legal status are a concern to all departments, given the need to manage access to Canadian territory and the labour market.
Today I would like to provide an overview and ask my colleagues to do the same from the perspectives of their departments.
First I would like to address the issue of undocumented workers.
I think it is very important to underline that most information we have about the undocumented population is not based on hard data. While a number of stakeholders have expressed views on this issue, there is no way of validating their estimates of the size of this population. What we do know is that many undocumented workers have been in Canada for some time--in some cases for many years--while many thousands of individuals are waiting to have their applications to enter Canada processed through normal legal channels.
There is no mechanism under the legislation, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, for someone who is illegally in Canada to become a permanent resident legally unless there are exceptional circumstances that warrant an application for permanent residence under humanitarian and compassionate consideration. Normally an undocumented worker needs to leave Canada and apply for legal admission through an overseas mission, with proper authorization, and subject to medical, criminal, and security checks.
I would now like to turn to temporary foreign workers. In 2006 approximately 112,000 temporary foreign workers came to Canada. While final data are not yet available, to the end of the second quarter of 2007 we saw an increase of approximately 25% over the same period in 2006.
In partnership with Human Resources and Social Development Canada, we are enhancing the temporary foreign worker program to make it even more responsive to the needs of Canadian employers. Following a series of administrative measures announced since November 2006--including improved employer outreach, streamlined processes, and increased federal-provincial-territorial collaboration--Budget 2007 provided new funding for CIC and HRSDC to deal with increasing volumes more efficiently and to fill gaps in the current programming, including the need for enhanced employer monitoring and compliance.
We are acutely aware of the need to improve the program to ensure employers are meeting their commitments to workers and that workers have the tools to raise their awareness of their rights and responsibilities.
At the same time, provinces and territories, which are largely responsible for monitoring employment standards and occupational health and safety, are actively engaging on this file. Under the Canada-Ontario immigration agreement, we have been negotiating an annex with the province to allow it to take a stronger role in identifying the temporary foreign workers it requires. The recently signed Canada-Alberta and Canada-Nova Scotia agreements also contain provisions to negotiate an annex on temporary foreign workers in the coming months, including recognition of the need to protect the interests of these workers.
To better support labour market needs, the government announced in Budget 2007 that it would permit, and indeed facilitate, the process of allowing skilled temporary foreign workers, including the skilled tradespeople who are already in Canada as legal temporary foreign workers, to apply for permanent residence without leaving the country. It is the government's intention to apply the same provision to foreign students who have earned Canadian credentials and work experience. We expect that by the time the program is up and running at full capacity, likely within five years, eventually some 25,000 people will be granted permanent residence status in Canada each year through this new mechanism.
In addition, the government has facilitated the entry of temporary foreign workers through various initiatives, such as the construction recruitment external workers services program, or CREWS, which helps to bring skilled construction trades into the Toronto area, and the memorandum of understanding for the entry of temporary foreign workers for projects in the Alberta oil sands, which facilitates the entry of the skilled workers required in that specialized sector.
These measures will help to ensure that our immigration system continues to play its traditional important role in growing Canada's economy. Taken together, these additional pathways, along with improvements to the temporary foreign worker program, should not only improve labour market responsiveness but also encourage the legal movement of workers to Canada.
I would now ask my colleagues from the CBSA and HRSDC to provide you with their perspectives on these issues.
Thank you.